Bagan 0-0 Mumbai FC

A win could have helped Bagan gain the top spot of the group.
But a goal less draw now makes it absolutely necessary to win the last match against Salgaokar FC – scheduled this Sunday 26th September.

An excellent game in the Federation Cup this year. No goals, but tremendous entertainment and some interesting tactical elements too.

Bagan lined up with three stoppers, one side back, one side half, one central midfielder and four strikers against Mumbai Fc here today.

Stanley Rosario opted for Ishfaq Ahmed in a position he is not familier with, while Gouranga Dutta, the genuine right half had to wait for 70 minutes to get into the ground.

Sagram Mandi was at the left back position while Biswajit Saha – the regular in the Kolkata League was there in the bench.

Diamondstar – the team’s think tank yet to know his actual playing position replaced Jose Barreto with less than 5 minutes reamining for the game while Jayanta Sen missed out!

The key to the game was all about who could control the tempo. The two sides had completely different approaches – Bagan played quick balls to the wingers who looked to run at the Mumbai FC full-backs, and they played at an incredibly high tempo as they dominated the opening period.

Bagan had a host of efforts on goal in the first 15 minutes but found Peter Siddique in excellent form – he made multiple outstanding saves to deny Bagan.

Mumbai Fc struggled to maintain possession of the ball early on, despite their three central midfielders, and therefore were unable to slow the pace of the game. Henry hit a couple of hopeless long balls too easy for Shilton.

Mumbai FC were defending with two solid banks of four, but Bagan rarely looked to get their midfielders or full-backs into attacking positions early on, so they were often faced with a 3 v 8 situation when trying to break down the Mumbai FC defence.

Eventually Bagan had to drop the pressure slightly after their frantic opening to the game, and Mumbai Fc gradually grew into the contest – the more they had possession, the more their shape had an interesting look to it.